After an expected oil-and-gas boom went bust, Kiowa County is staking its economic-development dreams on casino gambling, hoping to lure even just a small percentage of long-haul truckers on U.S. 287 to drop a few bucks on the slots or at blackjack.

"There's no jobs around here," Kiowa County Commissioner William Koehler said. "There's been some exploratory wells drilled but basically all dry holes and a lot of money spent."

The southeastern Colorado ranching and farming county recently surveyed its 961 registered voters to gauge interest in pursuing a casino development. Of the 484 responses, 55 percent voted yes.

"We're looking at a single casino, or maybe two," Koehler said. "No more than that."

To land one, Kiowa County would first need to place a measure on the November ballot through a citizen-proposed or legislatively referred constitutional amendment.

The county would join three other planned ballot initiatives in asking voters statewide to authorize casino gambling in various jurisdictions across Colorado.

Backers are counting on the notion that improving public sentiment toward gambling expansion nationwide will translate in Colorado. Experts say they face long odds.

Currently, commercial casinos are authorized in the mountain communities of Black Hawk, Central City and Cripple Creek. Voters approved limited-stakes gaming in the early 1990s as a way to revitalize the historic mining towns. Also, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and the Southern Ute Indian Tribe operate two casinos on reservation land in southwest Colorado.

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De Beque, a down-on-its-luck Western Slope town, is also banking on casinos for economic growth. The town is working with lawmakers — including Rep. Ray Scott, R-Grand Junction — to refer a measure to the November ballot that would seek to make De Beque the state's fourth casino jurisdiction.

Grain storage, houses and out buildings as well as playground equipment seen in the town of Haswell, in Kiowa County, Wednesday afternoon May 29, 2013. (Andy Cross, Denver Post file photo)

Separately, Rhode Island-based Twin River Casino is supporting a pair of citizen-proposed ballot initiatives that aim to allow table games, slot machines and video gambling terminals at its Arapahoe Park horse racetrack in Aurora and potential tracks in Pueblo and Mesa counties.

Each citizen initiative will need at least 86,105 certified signatures to appear on the November ballot. The proposals would send more than a third of each racetrack's gambling revenue toward K-12 education.

"There's people out there that are interested in getting more money into schools, but they really aren't interested in seeing a long-term tax because they see that slowing down the economy," said former state Rep. Vickie Armstrong, who submitted the ballot measures in February.

State lawmakers and casino-industry leaders have discussed various gambling-related initiatives in recent years, including a potential push for online poker.

"The climate is getting more favorable," said I. Nelson Rose, an expert on gambling law and consultant to government and industry. "Prior to 1996, no state had ever voted to amend its constitution to bring in high-stakes casino gambling in the face of active opposition. And in that year, the voters approved two, in Michigan and Arizona."

Colorado voters in 2008 approved a ballot measure that changed state law to allow craps and roulette and increased the casino bet limit to $100 from $5
. The effort, which faced little opposition, had the support of the state's community college system because it funneled a portion of new revenue to those schools.

In 2012, Rhode Island voters authorized live table games at Twin River Casino in Lincoln, R.I. The property was formerly a racetrack that featured video-lottery terminals, which are similar to slot machines.

This year, other states, including Illinois and South Dakota, are pushing to expand gaming.

Despite the uptick in positive public sentiment, Rose said most gambling-related measures are rejected.

"I don't expect that the proposals in Colorado are going to succeed because people tend to not vote to put casinos in their own backyard," Rose said, "and you do have all of the operators who are going to lobby against it."

In 2003, Colorado casinos spent more than $3 million to fight a ballot proposal that would have added hundreds of video-lottery terminals at Front Range racetracks. Twin River predecessor Wembley pumped $6 million into the measure, which was crushed at the ballot boxes by a 4-to-1 ratio.

One measure would authorize casino table games and slot machines at Arapahoe Park and one horse racetrack each in Mesa and Pueblo counties. The other would permit video-lottery terminals at those tracks. Currently, Arapahoe Park is the only horse racetrack in Colorado.

The titles for the measures were set Wednesday. If there are no objections, proponents could start circulating petitions in a week, a spokesman for the Colorado Secretary of State's Office said. A request for rehearing would push back the process until after April 2.

Signatures are due Aug. 4.

Mental health advocates say efforts to expand gaming should include additional funding to support compulsive bettors.

"Anytime you introduce gambling to an area that doesn't have it already, there's going to be a significant increase in problems," said Mike Faragher, who was the director of a problem-gambling treatment and research center at the University of Denver that recently lost its funding.

Without much, if any, financial support, De Beque and Kiowa County will face heavy odds just to get their initiatives on the ballot, much less sway voters statewide in their favor.

Sen. Larry Crowder, R-Alamosa, told Kiowa County commissioners at a February meeting that a successful push for casino gambling would be difficult and expensive.

"I polled some of the senators in the Senate, and I did not find anybody who would support it," Crowder said. "I don't believe that there's a county in the state right now that would stand a chance in getting additional gambling."

Nonetheless, Kiowa County commissioners Koehler and Richard Scott voted at that February meeting to continue the pursuit by soliciting feedback from other counties.

Koehler said the county's casino would target gamblers from about a 150-mile radius, covering southeast Colorado, some of western Kansas and up into the Burlington area.

"Highway 287 goes through Eads, and it's got major truck traffic," Koehler said. "If we could just stop 3 to 4 percent of them, that'd make a difference."

Commissioners will decide at a March 27 meeting whether to forge ahead.

"We don't have the finances to do anything great," Koehler said. "The private citizens will pitch in and call a senator or two, and plead our case. That's what we're going to try, I think."

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